Jean v. Chrysler Corp.

• Decision Date: 22 March 1966
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 528,528,1
• Citation: 2 Mich.App. 564,140 N.W.2d 756
• Parties: Hazel B. JEAN, Widow (Aaron Jean, Deceased), Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant. Cal
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 756

140 N.W.2d 756

2 Mich.App. 564

Hazel B. JEAN, Widow (Aaron Jean, Deceased), Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.

Cal. No. 528.

Court of Appeals of Michigan, Division No. 1.

March 22, 1966.

William J. Jones, Lacey & Jones, Detroit, for appellant.

Morton A. Eden, George W. Crockett, of Goodman, Crockett, Eden, Robb, & Philo, Detroit, for appellee.

Before GILLIS, P. J., and FITZGERALD and WATTS, JJ.

FITZGERALD, Judge.

Aaron Jean was an hourly-rated employee of the Chrysler Corporation working the second shift from 2:30 p. m. to midnight. On January 2, 1962, he finished his usual duties at midnight, punched the time clock and left the building. The West side of the building was adjacent to Mound Road in the city of Detroit, and it is necessary to cross Mound Road to reach the area leased by Chrysler and designated for employee parking. Mr. Jean proceeded through the plant gate, across the sidewalk, and started to cross Mound Road at an angle which would place him at the entrance to the parking area. Half way across the West lane he was struck by an automobile, sustaining injuries which resulted in his death. The driver of the automobile was not an employee of Chrysler Corporation.

The Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board entered an order on January 21, 1965, holding that the deceased's fatal injuries arose 'out of' and in the 'course of' his employment and awarded compensation to his dependents, a wife and two children. Defendant Chrysler Corporation appeals, contending that the Board erred in its findings.

It is obvious from the foregoing that the basic question before us, just as before the Appeal Board, is this: Did the deceased's injuries which occurred in a public street while he was passing from one property controlled by his employer to another property controlled by his employer, come within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act?

Narrowing the question down even further, we are in effect being asked to rule whether the deceased was still 'on the premises' of his employer though he was struck in the middle of a public highway.

Once again we are required to sail through the uncharted shoals of statutory interpretation: a logical common-sense application on one side, relecting legislative intent, versus the possibility of an unwarranted extension not contemplated in the statute's enactment.

The question before us is res nova in this state, a fact which in and of itself is intriguing when one considers that workmen's compensation legislation has been in effect since 1912 and that the amendment we find before us in this appeal has been in effect since 1954.

Defendant cites cases which stand for the broad proposition that an employee sustaining injuries at a place other than where his duties are directly performed does not come under the benefits of the act. These cases stand further for the proposition that the test of whether an injury arises out of and in the course of employment largely revolves around whether the employee was performing a service or duty owed his employer or whether he had further work or duties to perfrom for his employer on the day of the injury. Pearce v. Michigan Home and Training School (1925), 231 Mich. 536, 204 N.W. 699; Appleford v. Kimmel (1941), 297 Mich. 8, 296 N.W. 861; Daniel v. Murray Corporation (1949), 326 Mich. 1, 39 N.W.2d 229 and Stornant v. Licari-Packard Grosse Pointe, Inc. (1952), 332 Mich. 210, 50 N.W.2d 762.

Had our specific fact situation arisen only a few short years ago, there is scarce doubt that this appeal might not be before us and these cases standing alone might deny an award in this case. That they represented proper judicial interpretation of the act at the time is not questioned, but it is to be noted that all of them were decided prior to P.A. 1954, No. 175, ¹ amending the Workmen's Compensation Act by adding the following language:

'Every employee going to or from his work while on the premises where his work is to be performed, and within a reasonable time before and after his working hours, shall be presumed to be in the course of his employment.'

A direct confrontation between our fact situation and the language, supra, liberally sprinkled with logic and common sense, brings us to a conclusion which seems inescapable: that the mere act of crossing a public road from employer's premises to employer's premises and being injured while on that road does not remove the deceased from the basic protection which the legislature intended by the act and its 1954 amendment. An incidental departure from the premises does not rebut the amendment's presumption. That the employer owes, so to speak, a duty of 'safe passage' to an employee to the point where he can reach the proper arrival or departure from his work seems without question.

The parking lot the deceased was headed for had been leased by his employer and had been offered to him as a part of his employment. Indeed, the parking lot and its attendant use were a necessary adjunct of his employment and under no circumstance could travel to and from it be called a personal errand. The employer realized full well that the parking lot was separated from the main plant by a main-traveled thoroughfare and it was defendant who secured this parking lot, not the employees.

The instant facets of the Workmen's Compensation Act have been the subject of a logical progression of judicial interpretation over the years, more specifically in Dyer v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1957), 350 Mich. 92, 35 N.W.2d 152 and Lasiewicki v. Tusco Products Co. (1963), 372 Mich. 125, 125 N.W.2d 479. While there are fundamental differences between those cases and the one before us, we see no startling extension of interpretation of the act in saying that the employee who leaves work and within a reasonable time is injured in reaching other premises maintained by his employer as an adjunct of the employment is covered by the act. It was in Lasiewicki in which the following statement was made, pointing inexorably to the proper decision of this case:

'Long prior to the clarifying amendment of 1954, quoted above, when this, and other courts, had the responsibility of construing what the language 'arising out of and in the course of employment' meant in relation to place of injury, this Court statd an important principle in the 1914 case of Hills v. Blair, 182 Mich. 20, 27, 148 N.W. 243, 246 (7 NCCA 409):

"In applying the general rule that the period of going to and returning from work is not covered by the act, it is held that the employment is not limited by the exact time when the workman reaches the scene of his labor and begins it, nor when he ceases, but includes a...